so long as the stakes were worth fifty pounds and upwards, and the
weights were of the regulated standard. An Act passed five years
afterwards removed the restrictions as to the weights, and declared that
any one anywhere might start a horse-race with any weights, so long as
the stakes were fifty pounds or more. The provision for the forfeiture
of all horses but one belonging to one owner and running in the same
race was overlooked or forgotten, and owners with perfect impunity
ran their horses, as many as they pleased, in the same race. In 1839,
however, informations were laid against certain owners, whose horses
were claimed as forfeits; and then everybody woke up to the fact that
this curious clause of the Act of George II. was still unrepealed. The
Legislature interfered in behalf of the defendants, and passed an Act,
repealing in their eagerness not merely the penal clauses of the Act,
but the Act itself, so far as it related to horse-racing. Now, it was
supposed that upon the Act of the thirteenth of George II. depended the
whole legality of horse-racing, that the Act of the eighteenth of George
II. was merely explanatory of that statute, which, being repealed,
brought the practice again within the old law, according to which it
was illegal. By a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas it was decided,
however, that the words of the eighteenth of George II. were large
enough to legalize all races anywhere for fifty pounds and upwards, and
that the Act was not merely an explanatory one. Upon this basis rests
the existing law on the subject of horse-racing. Bets, however, as
before stated, on horse-races are still as illegal as they are on any of
the forbidden games--that is to say, they are outside the law; the law
will not lend its assistance to recover them.'(152)

(152) _Ubi Supra_.

The extent to which gambling has been carried on in the street by boys
was shown by the following summary laid before the Committee of the
House of Commons on Gaming, in 1844:--

Boys apprehended for gaming in the streets--

Convicted. Discharged.
1841.... 305.... 68.... 237
1842.... 245.... 66.... 179
1813.... 329.... 114.... 185
---- ---- ----
879 278 601

Only recently has any effectual check been put to this pernicious
practice. It is however enacted by the New Gaming Act, that--'Every
person playing or betting by way